Oh Haiti

Jared Diamond's Haiti story

One Island, Two Worlds

Why is Haiti so poor?

Too Small to Fail: Developing Haiti’s Economy

The Help That Haiti Needs

Country Without a Net

Nandan Nilekani and Tom Friedman

Book recommendation; Imagining India: The Idea of a Renewed Nation

Photo of the Day

via Boing Boing- Pieter Hugo's Nollywood Series

Related;
Nigerian films are so successful that the government wants to get involved;

Today, filmmaking employs about a million people in Nigeria, split equally between production and distribution, making it the country's biggest employer after agriculture, according to the National Film and Video Censors Board (NFVCB). The industry has sales of $200m-300m a year....

The films cost anywhere between $15,000 and $100,000 to make, and the money comes directly from the market. Producers, or “marketers”, as they are known, use some of the profits from one film to pay for the next. Banks do not lend to Nollywood, as there are no statistics from which they could estimate likely returns

What's the value added of World Bank?

"The bank thought it financed an electric power station, but in fact financed a brothel."

- Paul Rosenstein-Rodan, 1961 (source: The Rise and Fall of the World Bank Economic Department)


An interesting recent book on The World Bank;
The World Bank and the Gods of Lending by Steve Berkman

As a non-economist at the Bank, I was periodically reminded by my superiors of my obvious inability to grasp the full essence of economic development and all the nuances of the economic process. They were probably right, as I was, after all, just a technical specialist, and while specialists could only advise on their specialty, economists could advise on anything they damn well pleased because they were economists and had the inside track on everything. They were the economic managers, and their solution to the world’s problems was to produce more economic managers. And so the Bank would fund all sorts of training (Ph.D. degrees in economics being one of the more popular approaches), conferences, seminars, workshops, and whatever, to that end. The economists at the Bank were in essence cloning themselves, and they seemed to be quite pleased with the whole business...

I recall a regional management meeting in 1995 during which we were reviewing “problem projects” in our lending portfolio for Africa. We had at the time over five hundred ongoing projects in an $11 billion portfolio5 that required supervision by Bank staff to ensure that implementation was on track, loan agreement conditions were being met, and that project objectives would be achieved. As my PRT work had morphed into institutional development and public-sector management, and I had been doing skills-mix analyses for many of our borrower institutions, I decided, prior to our meeting, to examine the skills mix of our regional staff to see if this might have any correlation to our portfolio problems. Lo and behold, it seems that we had roughly 300 economists of various persuasions, 10 financial analysts, 10 public-administration specialists, and roughly 150 technical specialists (engineers, architects, educators, health services specialists, and so forth).

I raised this matter at the meeting and inquired how we could effectively handle the financial and institutional management issues, which were our major problem areas, with only ten financial and ten public administration specialists on our staff. I also asked what project-management expertise three hundred economists were adding to our ability to supervise our portfolio adequately.

Assorted Podcasts

Human rights in China

Fareed Zakaria

No more than one
Since its introduction in 1979 it has transformed Chinese society and Chinese families. We take a look at the 30-year history of China's one child policy.

Linguistic typology
The polyglot linguist Alexandra Aikhenvald describes the study of linguistic typology: classifying how languages are structured and comparing them to ascertain recurrent patterns and variations.

Me and other languages
Marking the United Nations-declared International Year of Languages, as well as its goal to preserve and promote linguistic diversity, the linguist Alexandra Aikhenvald tells the story of her own multilingualism, which reflects the story of a country that no longer exists.

Stoics at war
Recent philosophical debate on war has focused on the idea that you don't just have to fight by the rules; you also have to be fighting in a just cause. But does this ignore much of the moral context of a soldier's life. What binds comrades in arms together? What about stress and what about grief, and what does the ancient Roman philosophy of Stoicism have to tell us about it?

Literature, law and ethics - The case of Billy Budd
A visiting legal ethicist talks to us about why a novella by Herman Melville, involving mutiny and an execution at sea, has become required reading for those interested in the intersection of literature, law and ethics.

Is being gay in your biology?
What makes someone gay? The quest for the biological roots of sexual orientation remains rife with controversy. Is it in your genes, handedness, or the hormonal soup of the early foetus? Or, is the answer hidden deep inside the brain? Homo or hetero - the science of sexual attraction captures everyone's attention.

The Trials of the Templars
At dawn on 13 October 1307 all the Templars in France were arrested by royal order, on the charge that they had been involved in secret blasphemous rituals. This led to other arrests of Templars in Europe, and an investigation by Pope Clement V. The University of Sydney Rare Books and Special Collections Library recently obtained trial documents from the Vatican archives, which John Pryor discusses with Rachael Kohn.

Modelling the origin of time: science and religion at "the horizon of mystery"
Does science make belief in God obsolete? Cosmologist and mathematician Michal Heller's answer to this 'Big Question' this year won him the world's largest monetary prize given to an individual, the Templeton Prize. On Encounter Professor Heller explores 'creative tensions' between science and religion and talks about his research for a quantum gravity theory that might explain the Planck Epoch. And astronomer Guy Consolmagno SJ has things to say about meteorites, the Cassini-Huygens Mission to Saturn and Titan, and beauty.

Snoring kills

Sisters and babies
Why do humans, of all the primates, have so many babies? And what happens when sisters offer to carry babies for other members of their family? What happens to kinship? Professor Marilyn Strathern, a social anthropologist at Cambridge and head of Girton College, and Karen Kramer, another anthropologist at Harvard, have been tracking the complexities of motherhood and babies across many cultures, with surprising results.

New coral alga discovered in Sydney Harbour
Coral in Sydney Harbour has been found to contain a previously undiscovered alga. The coral encrusts rocks under the water. The alga lives in the coral and give it sugars. The family tree of algae based on sequencing DNA shows the alga is in a new position on the tree, and is related to the malaria parasite. The alga is seen as a missing link between another alga and a parasite. It was previously thought to be extinct.

The last environmental taboo
Today Richard Begbie from Canberra looks at the environmental cost of air travel. Airplanes add around 750 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year to the atmosphere and in the process burn 250 million tonnes of a non-renewable resource.

Harry Gordon: Living, breathing and writing the Olympics

The Role of NGOs in Achieving the Millennium Development Goals

What Does It Take to Achieve High, Sustainable, and Inclusive Growth in Developing Countries?

The Pentagon`s New Map

Zimbabwe: Beyond the Endgame

How Inflation Robs Zimbabwe


George Will's America
How Fannie and Freddie Got Big

Escaping Poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa

India: The Emerging Giant

Globalization and the World's Rising Living Standards
G8 and Aid for Africa,

Author Wallace Says Gates Surrounds Himself With Smart People

Global Democracy

“Fungal footbaths” could save the honey bee
Globally, the honey bee population is in decline. This has serious implications for the cross pollination of commercial crops and wild plants. One of the major causes of this decline is the “Varroa Destructor” mite. However, researchers at Warwick University may have found a natural solution to this problem. Dr Dave Chandler from Warwick HRI explains how.

'Art Gives One Complexity'
Novelist and academic Eva Hoffman has been awarded an honorary degree at Warwick. Here, she talks about her life experiences and the inspirations behind her best selling memoir ‘Lost in Translation’ and her new novel ‘Illuminations’.

‘Troubles in Zimbabwe must be resolved peacefully’
Dr George Kanyeihamba, one of this year’s honorary graduates, helped establish democracy and the independent judicial system in Uganda, and is considered the ‘Founding Father’ of human rights in Africa. Here, he talks about his experiences, and the need for peaceful resolution of events in Zimbabwe.

Macro-Modelling for Poor Countries- case of Mali

Going over Mali's Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper's I came over the following under 'Capacity building in macro-economic modelling and analysis';

-Preparation of micro-simulation model (MEGC) for analysis of impacts of exogenous shocks and policy measures on poverty and income distribution (World Bank financing)

-Macro-sectoral forecasts model, as tool for analysis of growth-oriented sectors.

For Comment: How much economic modelling is required before you can reduce poverty?

Related;

The country's budget planning gets an 'A' according to one rating;

Mali’s MTEF had the top “A” rating in its 2004 HIPC tracking exercise (question 7). However, a more recent assessment finds inadequate integration among the many tools developed to support reforms, including the MTEF, the sector MTEFs, the macroeconomic framework, the new budget nomenclatures, and the multi-year investment program. Timetables of the different exercises aren’t properly synchronized. Sector MTEFs are prepared mainly to satisfy donors, and are separate from the program budget process.

Promises from the latest Letter of Intent;

Mali is vulnerable to external or natural exogenous shocks. Without the fiscal space to respond rapidly to ad hoc demands, there is a risk that macroeconomic stability and the development program will be undermined. The Government considers that in the mediumterm, a zero basic balance is the most appropriate budget target for responding to emergent needs. In 2008 the deficit in the basic balance should be 1.9 percent of GDP, compared with 1.1 percent in 2007, reflecting the budgetary impact of the terms of trade. The aim is to reduce the deficit to 1 percent of GDP in 2009 and achieve balance in 2010. In order to respect the programming of expenditure to reduce poverty, measures have been implemented to correct the downward trend in the tax to GDP ratio observed since 2005....

Improving the quality of public spending remains a top priority. In coordination with our external partners, measures have been included in the Government Action Program for Improving and Modernizing Public Finance (PAGAM-GFP) to respond, among other things, to the conclusions of the Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability (PEFA) exercise. An action plan incorporating PEFA measures has been prepared for 2008. Efforts are under way to pursue implementation of the PAGAM-GFP/PEFA action plan, in particular by completing the connection of authorizing officers (ministries, institutions, regions) to the computerized expenditure system; improving the execution rate of programs by devolving parts of the Procurement Office to the regions; reviewing the Procurement Code; shifting gradually all donors from projects to budget support; and putting in place an economic and financial analysis unit to help strengthen the capacities of the Finance Committee of the National Assembly.

Mali - Public expenditure review

Mali- Creating Fiscal Space
Public Expenditure Management in Francophone Africa: A Cross-Country Analysis

Development of the cities of Mali : Challenges and priorities

Mali budget calendar

• Ministry review of budget-programmes
• Preparation of macro-fiscal framework as part of the Medium Term Budget Framework (MTBF)
• Preparation of Budget Circular (including ceilings and donors disbursement projections)
• Preparation by sector ministries of draft annual budget estimates, including the detailed budget-programmes, on the basis of sector expenditure ceilings in line with the CBMTMEF review of ministries’ budget requests, including the budget-programmes
• Budget negotiations and finalisation of draft Budget d’Etat
• Adoption of draft Budget by Council of Ministers
• Government submits the draft Budget d’Etat to the National Assembly
• Examination and adoption of the Loi de Finances by the National Assembly

Doing business 2008 Mali

Can Terrorists be bribed?

A recent book event at World Bank, featuring Fukuyama amongst others;

Terrorism, Economic Development and Political Openness, edited by Philip Keefer and Norman Loayza.

Cross-national evidence identifies a nuanced role for economic development in reducing terrorist activity. Chapters by Blomberg and Hess support policy maker conclusions that poverty drives terrorism, finding that higher incomes impede terrorist activity. Krueger and Laitin, on the other hand, find little economic foundation for terrorist origins. Why the different conclusions? Krueger and Laitin investigate the overall effects of income across all countries. In “From (No) Guns to Butter,” Blomberg and Hess argue that the effects may differ between richer and poorer countries. Looking at these two groups of countries separately, they find that higher incomes significantly reduce the threat of terrorism in poorer countries, while the opposite holds in richer countries. Pooling all countries, the two effects would cancel out. The aggregate result may then mask the important role of economic development to offset terrorist threats to poorer countries. Because of methodological and data challenges, however, we must recognize that the issue is not yet resolved.

In contrast to the lack of conclusive evidence on whether the poverty of nations is a determinant of terrorism, the evidence is more uniform that individual poverty does not make people more likely to support or participate in terrorist activity. In a survey of 6,000 Muslims from 14 countries, the poorest respondents were the least sympathetic to terrorism (Fair and Haqqani 2006). Krueger and Laitin, Laitin and Shapiro, and Llussá and Tavares, in this volume, review evidence showing that individual terrorists are neither poor nor uneducated.

The second question of concern to this volume’s contributors is whether weak governance and closed political systems foment terrorism. Results in Krueger and Laitin and Blomberg and Hess, though using substantially different approaches, coincide in finding that terrorism is more likely to originate in countries that exhibit closed political systems. Their findings lend strong support to policy maker assertions that good governance and political responsiveness to citizens are fundamental deterrents of terrorism.

Krueger and Laitin and Blomberg and Hess also agree that the economic characteristics of countries affect whether they will be the target of terrorist activity. This leads to a provocative dichotomy. The origins of terrorism seem to be in countries that suffer from political oppression; the targets are countries that enjoy economic success....

The conclusion that terrorists are driven not by personal poverty, but by the political and economic climate of the countries from which they come raises new questions. Why should the social environment be more important than individual income? Why are terrorist organizations more common in countries with difficult political climates? In their chapter, Laitin and Shapiro provide reason to believe that the answer lies in the challenges of constructing a terrorist organization. Even though terrorism is not a purely ideological phenomenon, terrorist organizations depend on ideologically motivated, educated recruits. Unlike, for example, trench warfare, terrorism requires individual initiative and the exercise of judgment. Close monitoring by terrorist leaders of their “employees” is not possible. Ideological commitment helps solve part of this contracting problem. So also does an emphasis on recruiting well-educated individuals, who are most likely to come from more prosperous families.

Laitin and Shapiro emphasize that terrorism is not simply the direct outcome of irrational behavior. Terrorism is a complex strategy to achieve economic and political goals, having roots in distinct cultural and religious differences and using ideological commitment to sharpen its organization. Their conclusion is not surprising and could extend to the role of cultural and religious factors in social conflict throughout history. The One Hundred Years War is just one example of prolonged conflict in the West in which religious motivations were intertwined with other serious economic and political differences.

Their argument explains why terrorists themselves are rarely poor and why terrorist organizations are most likely to emerge in politically closed countries. On the one hand, terrorist organization is difficult and requires individuals with substantial human capital, which is more prevalent in families rich enough to educate their children well. On the other hand, to persuade such well-educated, relatively prosperous individuals to join a terrorist organization in democratic countries is difficult: the ideological payoffs are fewer and peaceful alternatives to terrorist methods are more abundant and effective. This also explains the paradox that individual poverty is less associated with terrorist activities than national poverty. National incomes and the political responsiveness of national governments are closely related: political environments that are repressive enough to facilitate terrorist recruitment are less likely to attract substantial investment and entrepreneurial activity.

Related;
The Riddle of Terrorism
Economics and Terrorism: What We Know, What We Should Know and the Data We Need

Terrorism and Civil War
Kto Kogo?: A Cross-Country Study of the Origins and Targets of Terrorism

Albinos in Tanzania

dozens of albinos have been murdered and their bodies dismembered as some witch doctors claim that the use of albino body parts can help people to become rich

Related;
The Hammer Against Witches

Assorted

Chart of the Day: 9/11 Vs. Subprime Shocks

World Bank Report on Public Sector Reforms - What works and Why?

How can we end poverty? The determinants of development

From Good to Great … to Below Average

Islam and apostasy

Do economists need brains?

Chance of Obama-Clinton Ticket Is Seen as Unlikely

Uganda-A grumpy kingdom

Zimbabwe to lop zeroes off currency

Too Big to Fail?

Summers Vindicated (again)

Global Financial Stability Report Market Update

NYT vs WSJ on gender issues

The Origin of African Checks and Balances

A World Free for Tigers

From the World Bank;
TIGER CONSERVATION: MOVING LESSONS LEARNT TOWARDS A WINNING STRATEGY

Related;
Hoisted from Comments by Tony Whitten;

As one of the Bank's team which organized the Tiger Event on June 9 and the author of the blog to which you link, let me give my perspective on this reasonable question. I regard biodiversity protection (e.g. of tigers) as an integral part of development and is part of our obligation to support countries which have signed the Convention on Biological Diversity. The continued survival of wild tigers is a good indicator of sound forest management, rural development strategies, infrastructure development, and governance. The conservation of biodiversity (and other global public goods is a major part of the sustainability agenda) and this is clearly recognized in the MDGs. Biodiversity conservation can also produce significant co-benefits to communities living in and around natural habitats. All the biodiversity work we support is done with a view to social condition and social impact and as such is an integral part of poverty alleviation and economic growth. Details of our large portfolio of biodiversity projects can be found on www.worldbank.org/biodiversity.

Yes Afghanistan is a Narco-State

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime was arriving at the same conclusion. Later that year, they issued a report linking the drug trade to the insurgency and made a controversial statement: “Opium cultivation in Afghanistan is no longer associated with poverty — quite the opposite.” The office convincingly demonstrated that poor farmers were abandoning the crop and that poppy growth was largely confined to some of the wealthiest parts of Afghanistan. The report recommended that eradication efforts be pursued “more honestly and more vigorously,” along with stronger anticorruption measures. Earlier this year, the U.N. published an even more detailed paper titled “Is Poverty Driving the Afghan Opium Boom?” It rejected the idea that farmers would starve without the poppy, concluding that “poverty does not appear to have been the main driving factor in the expansion of opium poppy cultivation in recent years.”

The U.N. reports shattered the myth that poppies are grown by destitute farmers who have no other source of income. They demonstrated that approximately 80 percent of the land under poppy cultivation in the south had been planted with it only in the last two years. It was not a matter of “tradition,” and these farmers did not need an alternative livelihood. They had abandoned their previous livelihoods — mainly vegetables, cotton and wheat (which was in severely short supply) — to take advantage of the security vacuum to grow a more profitable crop: opium....

That is where we are today. The solution remains a simple one: execute the policy developed in 2007. It requires the following steps:

1. Inform President Karzai that he must stop protecting drug lords and narco-farmers or he will lose U.S. support. Karzai should issue a new decree of zero tolerance for poppy cultivation during the coming growing season. He should order farmers to plant wheat, and guarantee today’s high wheat prices. Karzai must simultaneously authorize aggressive force-protected manual and aerial eradication of poppies in Helmand and Kandahar Provinces for those farmers who do not plant legal crops.

2. Order the Pentagon to support this strategy. Position allied and Afghan troops in places that create security pockets so that Afghan counternarcotics police can arrest powerful drug lords. Enable force-protected eradication with the Afghan-set goal of eradicating 50,000 hectares as the benchmark.

3. Increase the number of D.E.A. agents in Kabul and assist the Afghan attorney general in prosecuting key traffickers and corrupt government officials from all ethnic groups, including southern Pashtuns.

4. Get new development projects quickly to the provinces that become poppy-free or stay poppy free. The north should see significant rewards for its successful anticultivation efforts. Do not, however, provide cash to farmers for eradication.

5. Ask the allies either to help in this effort or stand down and let us do the job.

-Is Afghanistan a Narco-State?

The Changing Middleast

In Jordan, God's Work on Modernity's Doorstep

Related;
Islam and Economic Development
Religion as the solution to collective action problems

Podcasts

World Bank's Ravallion Sees Growth Constraints in Africa
and admiration for China

Frankel Says Euro May Replace Dollar as Reserve Currency

Doug Rivers on polling

The Pirate's Dilemma

Modern miracles; a history of medicine

The story of highways

History of the Popes

The Wisdom of Water
The popular advocate and water expert, John Archer, has turned his attention to the waters that flow through almost all the spiritual traditions of the world. From clouds and rivers and rainbows, to dew-drops and thunder, water is a universal and ancient motif in religion

The great grammar debate
Is learning formal grammar essential to becoming a good writer and communicator? Or is it more important to develop a feeling for language that can be applied in different contexts?

The late great physicist Richard Feynman

The expressive side of the face
60% of people turn their head when asked to pose for a portrait. A prime example is that of Mona Lisa. So why does this bias exist? When people try to express emotion, they turn the left side of the face

Can science teach us anything about morality?

Speed cleaning for your soul

Central banks ‘key’ to stop recession
Economist Professor Stephen Nickell, a former member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee and one of this year’s honorary graduates at Warwick, says the UK could see a severe recession but that will depend on the action of the Bank of England and other central banks around the world

McMafia: A journey through the criminal underworld

International Development Happy Hour?

I wonder what would Dani Rodrik, Chris Blattman and Easterly think of this crowd.

Is the World Bank a Bank?

The World Bank's early reflections on development : a development institution or a bank?

Summary: Until the late 1960s, the World Bank presented itself as an institution devoted to making sound and directly productive project loans. Yet, during its very early years, some discussions developed inside the Bank regarding the possibility of issuing different types of loans, namely (i) loans aimed at tackling social issues ("social loans"), and (ii) loans aimed at providing foreign currency to address disequilibria in the balance of payments ("impact loans"). This paper brings together historical analysis and theories of organization development to study the housing issue as a case in point. The analysis reveals that the Bank was unwilling to lend for housing programs not because these were not sound - in fact, they were - but because they were geared toward achieving social welfare objectives and were not directly linked to productive investment projects, such as dams, power stations, and railroads. This early decision had a significant impact on the subsequent development of the Bank's view of policy-making: it locked the institution into a particular lending pattern, and deprived it of important intellectual resources. It was not until the late 1960s that the Bank began to take social issues into consideration, rather late compared with other multilateral institutions.

Empirics of Governance

An interesting discussion series from World Bank on governance indicators;

The seminar "Empirics of Governance" was held on May 1 to 2, 2008, at the World Bank Headquarters in Washington D.C. This seminar was organized by the Office of the Chief Economist and Senior Vice President, Development Economics (DEC). One important question which the seminar aimed to address is how to help practitioners “use the right indicator for the right job”.

More specifically, the following objectives were set for the seminar: firstly, creating common understanding among the various stakeholders of the complexity of the issues and the need to move ahead when perfection is not attainable, and deepening the interaction between producers of indicators, researchers and operational users; and secondly, helping develop an operational/research agenda going forward. The latter includes development of indicators, their operational use within the Bank, and priority research activities.

Speakers included nine academics and five experts from outside the Bank who are involved in the production of governance indicators, representatives from International Financial Institutions, and a number of Bank staff. A special effort was made to capture a range of experience and views. A number of staff and advisors to the Executive Directors participated in discussion.

The first day of the seminar focused on “Governance Indicators: Issues of Measurement and Use in Research and Policy”. Four types of governance indicators were discussed during the four sessions: broad-expert based indicators, narrow/actionable expert-based indicators, indicators based on representative household and firm surveys and aggregate/composite indicators

Can somebody please explain.

Quote of the Day

Chinese Ambassador Wang Guangya, whose nation is one of Zimbabwe's major trading partners, expressed similiar sentiments, saying Zimbabwe should be allowed to resolve its political crisis on its own.

''The development of the situation in Zimbabwe until now has not exceeded the context of domestic affairs,'' Wang said, adding that sanctions would ''interfere with the negotiation process.''

-Russia and China Veto U.N. Sanctions on Zimbabwe

Related;
Is it true what they say about the Chinese? The effects of China’s lending in Africa

Most boring development blog award

The award goes to Povert & Growth blog of the World Bank.

One suggestion to make it interesting- comment about the following 'secret World Bank report'?

Secret report: biofuel caused food crisis;

Biofuels have forced global food prices up by 75% - far more than previously estimated - according to a confidential World Bank report obtained by the Guardian.

The damning unpublished assessment is based on the most detailed analysis of the crisis so far, carried out by an internationally-respected economist at global financial body.

The figure emphatically contradicts the US government's claims that plant-derived fuels contribute less than 3% to food-price rises. It will add to pressure on governments in Washington and across Europe, which have turned to plant-derived fuels to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and reduce their dependence on imported oil.

Senior development sources believe the report, completed in April, has not been published to avoid embarrassing President George Bush.

"It would put the World Bank in a political hot-spot with the White House," said one yesterday.

Headline of the Day

World leaders enjoy 18-course banquet as they discuss how to solve global food crisis

The following headline appears too suspicious-
G8 says committed to fulfilling Africa aid pledge

Related;The G8 on Africa and development

IMF and World Bank compete for attention;
Export Restrictions Hamper Humanitarian Response, Zoellick Says
Price Surge Driving Some Countries Close to Tipping Point—IMF

The tipping point in Zimbabwe

Chris Blattman asks Should Mugabe be denounced?. Now that Zimbabwe Opposition Leader Pulls Out of Runoff, maybe he may reconsider his views.